The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing

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From the penny dreadful, which challenges seekers of sensation to
discover the truth in a pattern of gory details; to the
twentieth-century detective novel, which offers an intricate puzzle
solved through the application of the intellect; to the crime novel,
which probes the psyches of the characters, the crime and mystery genre
offers readers an intellectual excitement unsurpassed by other forms of
fiction. Now The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing
provides scholars and fans of this genre with an authoritative yet
playful compendium of knowledge about a literature known for its highly
entertaining treatment of deadly serious puzzles.

Editor Rosemary
Herbert has brought together 666 articles--written by such authorities
as Edward D. Hoch, Sara Paretsky, and the late Julian Symons--that will
accompany readers in their armchair investigations. Here can be found
informative biographies of great mystery writers from Edgar Allan Poe to
Rex Stout to Ruth Rendell. Here, too, favorite sleuths--including
Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Nero Wolfe, Adam Dalgliesh,
and Kinsey Milhone--keep company with master criminals such as Professor
Moriarty and Fu Manchu. Character types--from the country constable to
the omniscient sleuth to the femme fatale--sleuth, think, or slink
within these pages.

In the great tradition of Oxford Companions,
this volume features extended essays on the development of this
literature, its subgenres and schools of writing. It also serves as a
catalogue of the components of mystery writing, such as famous clues,
authorial ingenuity, and even an entry on "The Butler Did It." A
strength of the volume is found in linked articles which can guide
readers from, for instance, a careful definition of Murder to a
delightfully quirky compendium of fictional victims in an article on The
Corpse.